The Haddon Curriculum

At Haddon our ethos is ‘Dream Big, Aim High’.  We educate our children in a nurturing, happy environment where all pupils are encouraged to achieve the highest standards.  Our curriculum offers pupils the opportunity to fulfil their full potential whilst providing experiences that they will remember forever.  We have developed an exciting and innovative model of teaching and learning for our curriculum, where learning is supported through a key text.  This approach engages children in learning whilst equipping them with a love of reading, giving them access to a rich and diverse selection of books by the time they leave Haddon.

Our bespoke curriculum is driven by the needs of our children.  This has shaped our intent to ensure that our curriculum is rich with opportunities and learning experiences. 

We carefully WEAVE the following concepts as Golden Threads throughout our bespoke Haddon curriculum.

W- Giving children the opportunity to learn about and experience the Wider World, developing their knowledge, experiences and cultural capital.

E- A curriculum full of experiential learning, challenging children to overcome personal barriers through culturally rich, memorable experiences which expand their knowledge of the wider society. 

A- We strive for our children and community to be aspirational in everything they do and we want our children to believe that they can achieve anything- ‘Dream Big, Aim High’.

V- We strive to create a language rich environment, using high quality texts in our teaching to expand children’s vocabulary and improve communication and language.

E- Equality and diversity are paramount. Enabling children to develop these values for themselves by experiencing a curriculum which is rooted in celebrating equality and diversity.

Learning is shaped through a guiding question which forms the title of the enquiry.  All enquiries begin with an exciting "hook" into learning and finish with an authentic outcome that we are proud to share with our friends and families.

To ensure that learning is purposeful and has meaning, our English curriculum runs through all of our foundation subjects to enable our pupils to apply the skills being taught.  Maths teaching follows the White Rose Mastery Approach where children develop their mental Maths, fluency and reasoning within every lesson.

Phonics is taught from Foundation Stage 1 through to year 2 and beyond, following the No Nonsense Scheme.  Pupils in foundation and Key Stage 1 take part in daily stand alone sessions to ensure that dedicated time is provided to these skills.  We also use this to support children in Key Stage 2 as needed. 

The Early Years Foundation Stage

Our EYFS children learn and develop though a wide range of experiences and opportunities which critically meet their needs and interests. This means that the children are introduced to new ideas, extensively practise skills and apply embedded learning through an age appropriate, meaningful and an engaging curriculum which meets the needs of ALL children.

A text based curriculum provides a rich starting point of all learners, with a high quality range of fiction, non-fiction and multimedia approaches threaded through the curriculum each term. Texts are not agreed at the point of long-term planning and are also subject to change at the mid term planning stage. This is because provision in the EYFS needs to be flexible and responsive to the children’s interests / fascinations which are constantly developing and changing when children are aged between 3 and 5 years.

Our Haddon Curriculum is constantly evolving to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all our children.  It is forward thinking, addressing current issues that our pupils are exposed to today and in the future.  At Haddon, we believe in preparing our pupils for every stage of education and their future lives!

What our children think of our curriculum:

"I love going on all of the trips so that we can experience what we are learning in the classroom"

Year 5 pupil

"Picture News gets us talking as a class about things that are happening.  We get to say what we think and feel about it"

Year 2 pupil

"We have a book that we learn about - I like learning new words from my teacher"

Year 1 pupil

"I feel that I know more about the Egyptians because we learn from books, artefacts and carry out our own research"

Year 3 pupil

"I liked it when we had to think of getting the kite down from the tree - I made my own kite and my teacher read a book about a boy whose kite got stuck too!"

Foundation Stage 2 pupil

Phonics at Haddon

At Haddon, we believe all children should become competent readers who choose to read. To achieve this, we have a carefully planned approach that is implemented with rigour and fidelity. An essential element of this is our DfE-Validated phonics programme, No Nonsense Phonics.

The No Nonsense Phonics (Skills) programme provides a comprehensive step-by-step method for teaching reading, handwriting and spelling. Author Debbie Hepplewhite guides the teacher and the learner through a series of carefully designed routines to master the complex English Alphabetic Code.

The programme:

• Provides systematic and rigorous phonics teaching and pupil practice from code to word to text level with a content-rich vocabulary-with incidental phonics teaching as required
• Teaches handwriting of upper case and lower case letters and letter groups linked to the Alphabet and the English Alphabetic Code
• Applies and extends phonics to reading and writing cumulative text, developing comprehension and evoking imagination
• Builds up knowledge and understanding of ‘spelling word banks’ from the outset
• Involves and engages the learner fully and routinely in formative assessment
• Enables ample revision and repeat reading as required and ongoing marking and monitoring that is tangible to everyone
• Informs parents/carers/support staff and promotes ‘working in partnership’ as appropriate

No Nonsense Phonics provide our children with a high-level of challenge and an opportunity to really show what they can and cannot do. The paper-based approach ensures practitioners, and the children themselves, are successful and know what areas need support. This enables our staff to respond swiftly and continue to guide the children in mastering the Alphabetic code.

• Each Pupil Book (Books 1 to 9) is rich in content, providing phonics instruction and exercises (print-to-sound for reading, and sound-to-print for spelling) with cumulative alphabetic code (letter/s-sound correspondences), and cumulative words and meaningful texts. Learners develop their language comprehension and build up their knowledge of new vocabulary and spelling word banks. High-frequency words, tricky words and additional letter/s-sound correspondences are drip-fed into the teaching and learning sequence. Mini Stories throughout the books bring all the different strands of the programme together.

Pupils in FS1 build the essential knowledge and skills required to make a strong start in reception. Once in FS2, children begin No Nonsense Phonics sessions and complete Books 1-4 throughout the year. Children learn to form all letters and focus on recognising and recalling the ‘code’ contained in their books.  They access a ‘Multi-skills’ lesson to learn a new piece of code and then embed this the following day in a ‘Mini-story’ lesson.

As the children move into Year One, they build on Books 1-4 and progress through to Book 8. The range of code they know builds cumulatively so they can read more challenging text and spell confidently with a range of code. To support our children grasp the Alphabetic code, they also access an Alphabetic code chart. This enables them to understand the relationship between code and sounds. They learn how sounds can be represented with text and that certain letters or groups of letters can represent more than one sound.

Children complete the No Nonsense Programme in Year Two by completing Book 9. This books presents the children with the challenge of seeing the same code represent different sounds or the same sound represented through different code. It is quite a challenge and our children love it!

To help the children really embed their learning, we also give them a reading book that closely matches the phonics they know. They have time to practise reading the book in school before it is sent home. This can sometimes give the impression that the book is too easy. However, just like Goldilocks and the porridge, it is ‘just right.’ Because the children have practised reading the book, they are able to read all of the words in the book and not guess. That means they can continue to read their book at home to work on making it ‘flow.’ To support your child, listen to them read and you might reread parts to them so they can understand how the words can flow. We also want you to read different stories and text to them as that will help them experience far more interesting words than they might find in their ‘learning to read’ books. We also know that sitting together to share a book is a very special moment!

Writing at Haddon

Our vision for writing

At Haddon, we believe in a holistic approach to the teaching of English.  Our vision is to provide children with opportunities to develop their passion and skillset for reading and writing in a cohesive way. 

In writing, we inspire and motivate children through high-quality texts and WAGOLLs.  These give a rich and varied literary heritage which enables all children to access a variety of genres and produce a range of high-quality outcomes.  By providing our children with the literary toolkit they need to succeed, we strive for them to become fluent and imaginative writers who can write effectively in a range of contexts and for a range of purposes.

We produce confident writers who are not afraid to take risks and are able to transfer taught skills in a variety of contexts. The children are intrinsically motivated by a clear purpose for their writing. They are reflective writers, assessing their own and others writing. They understand the purpose of their writing and the impact that their word choice and style have on the reader.

Haddon Path to Publish

1. Hook: Children are engaged in their new genre/text.
2. SPAG/Generate: Children are taught genre specific skills and given the opportunity to apply these independently.
3. Plan: Children plan ideas for their writing outcome.
4. Draft: Children independently apply the skills and knowledge they have been taught into a draft of their writing outcome.
5. Edit: After completing their writing outcome, children edit their writing.
6. Publish Children publish/present their writing outcome.

The Haddon Path to Publish is used alongside the Haddon lesson design.

All steps in the learning sequence have equal importance but require different amounts of teaching time.

"Team Haddon"

At Haddon, our staff are dedicated to providing all of our pupils with high quality learning experiences, that are meaningful, fun and expose all children to age related expectation and challenge.

Teachers work together across school to support curriculum developments and plan in key stage teams.